Your Couch Is Not My Couch!

I was standing outside my apartment complex Saturday night and one of my neighbors comes out. I didn't even really know the guy, didn't even know his name at the time, and he asks me if I'll help him move his couch from his apartment to another one right next door that he is moving into. I'm like, sure, and we plan on moving the couch Sunday morning. I told him I'd be around between 8am-10am so just let me know. He said he was going to start moving all his other stuff into the new apartment early in the morning and so he'd see me out in the hall at some point.

The next day I'm walking down the hall about 9am and he isn't anywhere around. I figured I'd see him out in the hall because that's when he SAID he was going to start moving all his other stuff, EARLY in the morning, but I don't see the guy until probably around 11am. He says he got up late and now he has to go somewhere, that he'd be back around 1pm and he'd be ready to move the couch. I'm like, this is starting to become a pain because I just wanted to get up and get it OVER WITH; now I've got to hang around a bit more waiting to move this couch of some dude I don't even know in some effort, I guess, to be "neighborly"?

So I see the guy again out in the hall around 1pm and he's telling me that he's a big football fan. He's a big football fan who likes to watch the games on Sunday and it just dawned on him that if we move the couch at 1PM that that's when the FooTbALL GaMeS start and he wouldn't have a couch to sit on in his old apartment (where the TV cable connection is) while he watches the games! So he asks me if I can come back around 7pm, after the afternoon football games. I'm like, yeah, I guess, whatever. I like to watch football, too, and I wanted to watch the night game at 8:20pm, so I hoped to get the damn couch moved before that one started.

I see him again at 7pm and he tells me it's a REAL BIG COUCH and that he called his friend to come over and help us, that his friend would be over around 8pm. I tell him, "Well, we'll need to hurry because I want to watch the night game between the Steelers and Saints which starts at 8:20pm." Then he's like, "Oh, that's right, that's gonna be a good game! Maybe we should just wait until morning to move the couch so me and Harold (his friend) can have some place to sit while we watch it, too!"

Reluctantly I set a time with him to move his damn couch on Monday morning at 7am right before I go to work. I get up, go down the hall and, of course, he isn't anywhere around. I start to knock on his door to wake him up so I can get this idea of moving a stranger's couch out of my head, just get this thing off my back so it will stop HAUNTING ME, and just before I start to knock I stop, stare at his door and point at it, say softly but firmly to the door, "YOUR COUCH IS NOT MY COUCH!" and just head off to work without talking to the guy.

Of course, as soon as I get back from work a few hours later I'm walking down the hall, heading to my apartment; I walk past his place and he has the door open. He is standing there with his friend and I look and see the couch. I just KNEW that if we didn't FINALLY move the couch that instant that it was going to continue haunt me, so I said, "Let's go ahead and get that couch moved!" So we do move it, finally, and it was a real bitch to do. It took about 20 minutes to move it out of his old apartment and into the new one, the two of us grunting and groaning and sweating while his friend--who actually KNEW HIM and seemed in perfectly fine physical shape to me-- stood there watching and texting people! When we were finished the guy gave me a bag of instant oatmeal, a half box of instant potatoes and a full pack of Camel Turkish Royal cigarettes for my troubles so I guess it was worth it, but boy was I ever glad to get that couch moved and off my mind!